S. Beth Atkin, Voices from the Street: Young Gang Members Tell Their Stories. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996. This book includes interviews with former gang members from different parts of the United States, with their photographs and poems.

Sandra Gardner, Street Gangs in America. New York: Franklin Watts, 1992. A writer on youth and family issues for the New York Times examines the reasons young people are drawn to gangs and how gang membership affects them, their families, and society.

Joyce Carol Oates, Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang. New York: Plume Books, 1994. In this novel, the awardwinning author explores the lives of five alienated teenage girls who form a gang and get caught up in violence.

Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Deadly Consequences: How Violence Is Destroying Our Teenage Population and a Plan to Begin Solving the Problem. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. This book, by a former Massachusetts...